A Computational Textual Analysis of Womad, a South Korean Online “Feminist” Community

International Journal of Communication 15(2021), 1891–1911 1932–8036/20210005 Feminism Without Morality, Neoliberalism as Feminist Praxis: A Computational Textual Analysis of Womad, a South Korean Online “Feminist” Community JIHAE KOO1 Kookmin University, South Korea MINCHUL KIM Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea Womad, a South Korean online “feminist” community, has since its inception been the center of national controversy stemming from its avowed belief in the biological superiority of women (and the innate inferiority of men). Using computational textual analysis (topic modeling), we reveal how Womad’s espousal of biological essentialism is inextricable from a neoliberalist belief in individual capacity. That is, neoliberalism allows the community to reconceive feminism as a means to advance individual cis-women’s power over other identities. Womad’s communal rhetoric is thus closely linked to its users’ enthusiasm for neoliberal self-fashioning as the means to overcome female oppression, an optimism simultaneously complicated by the desire to escape Korea and the latter’s patriarchal nationalism. In sum, Womad’s vision of female emancipation—problematic as it is—needs to be situated alongside both its criticism of South Korean nationalism and its faith in neoliberalism as a means to escape the patriarchy. Keywords: feminism, right wing movements, neoliberalism, antinationalism, South Korea, topic modeling On May 4, 2019, there appeared in New York’s Times Square—off 54th and Broadway, to be exact— an advertisement with the cryptic message “Womad Release the Truth.” Beneath the message was a silhouette of a woman—meaningless perhaps to the bulk of the American public, but easily recognizable to South Koreans as the silhouette of Geun-Hye Park, former South Korean president who was impeached in 2017 and is currently serving a more than 25-year sentence for a total of 21 charges, including abuse of power, coercion, and bribery. Often overshadowed by her late father Chung-Hee Park, the dictator who ruled South Korea for two decades, Park the younger (also known as the “Princess” to the South Korean public) was a conservative leader who JiHae Koo: [email protected] Minchul Kim (corresponding author): [email protected] Date submitted: 2020-02-26 1 The authors would like to thank Dr. Radhika Parameswaran and Dr. Saif Shahin for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of the article. Copyright © 2021 (JiHae Koo and Minchul Kim). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non- commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org. 1892 JiHae Koo and Minchul Kim International Journal of Communication 15(2021) symbolized nostalgia for the days of rapid economic growth and anticommunist solidarity: a living relic from Park the Elder’s regime. The advertisement was crowd-funded by members of Womad, a South Korean online community that identifies itself as “feminist” (what this means exactly will be the focus of this article), to call for the release of the disgraced president (who embodies “the Truth” according to the advertisement). According to the Womad user who proposed the advertisement: All the work we do [in Womad] is for the sake of all women; advertising in Time Square [for Park’s release] is the most effective way to achieve our goal to impeach Moon [the current president of South Korea, also known for his liberal-progressive views] and free Park. (anonymous user, December 19, 2018) Womad’s politics is definitely more extreme than most mainstream online feminism examined in the literature (Drüeke & Zobl, 2016; Sadowski, 2016) in that its tactics reach beyond those aiming to raise awareness of everyday sexism. This article will situate Womad’s radical feminist politics—referring to its espousal of radical feminist-cum-separatist politics (Whelehan, 1995), which has been translated in Womad into a championing of female superiority over male inferiority (J. Choi, 2018)—within a feminist media studies discourse that examines how neoliberalism has influenced online feminist activism. Baer (2016) notes how neoliberalism has led feminist activism to shift away from an emphasis on building lasting coalitions and place greater stress on activism that mobilizes participants to partake in individualized, ephemeral behavior largely taking place online (e.g., retweeting hashtags). However, one other thing to consider is how Womad’s ideological leanings—as its full-hearted support for the ousted authoritarian president signals—can hardly be interpreted as fulfilling a straightforwardly progressive feminism (this in spite of its endorsement of women’s reproductive rights and its investment in raising general awareness among women regarding misogyny and sexism; e.g., Ryu, 2018). This is especially evident when Womad is compared with similarly “radical” feminist groups such as FEMEN and Pussy Riot: groups which also exemplify an individualized feminism influenced by a neoliberalist worldview (Baer, 2016). This is because despite their limitations, the agendas of both FEMEN and Pussy Riot are understood as falling broadly under a left-wing politics that opposes oppressive regimes (Eileraas, 2014; O’Keefe, 2014). This article explores how Womad relies on the logics of neoliberalism—specifically, the emphasis on self-empowerment—to both justify the community’s unquestioned faith in the necessity of oppressive hierarchies and criticize South Korean patriarchy. In doing so, we will avoid pigeonholing Womad as either unquestionably liberating for South Korean women or simply toxic in its use of radical feminist ideas in support of essentialist logics. Our study thus complicates how the literature on women’s participation in neoliberal and/or conservative movements have associated women’s involvement in either movement with the inability to critique the patriarchal status quo. Scholarship on neoliberal feminism highlights how neoliberalism has defanged feminism’s radical potential by valorizing individual experience over collective action (Banet-Weiser, 2018a; Brown, 2015; Rottenberg, 2014). The literature overall underscores how neoliberalism forecloses the critique of patriarchal power structures in its myopic focus on individual bodies as the locus of desire, value, and agency (Gill & Kanai, 2018). Research on women’s participation in conservative movements has focused predominantly on nuancing our understanding of the motives undergirding women’s involvement in patriarchal religious and/or nationalist movements (Bacchetta & Power, 2002). Mahmood (2001) writes of how, for the conservative women of the Egyptian mosque International Journal of Communication 15(2021) Feminism Without Morality 1893 movement, agency may be less about achieving liberation from the status quo and more about the capacity to wield power via adapting to the structures of power one is situated within. In recuperating these women’s agency, however, the scholarship also uncovers how such expressions of agency ultimately rely on the same patriarchy that relegates these women to second-class status (Blee, 2002; Dworkin, 1983). As our analysis will show, Womad’s enthusiastic embrace of the neoliberal mantra of self- improvement enables the community to not only dream of domination (through economic prowess) over individual men, but also critique the South Korean nation-state for inhibiting women from developing their capacities as successful neoliberal subjects. The article will explore why Womad considers the current South Korean government to be anathema to women’s freedom—which it associates with untrammeled neoliberal subjectivity—and how it recapitulates the logic of Western exceptionalism when critiquing the South Korean status quo (being pro-American in Korea being indicative of conservatism, e.g., D. C. Kim, 2017). Our study will show that, as problematic as Womad’s vision of freedom is, Womad’s desire for freedom should still be appreciated for how it reflects Womad users’ recognition of female oppression in contemporary South Korea. In the literature review we position Womad within research on online misandry (which in the case of Womad is intertwined with its conservative, hierarchical worldview), South Korean feminism, and South Korean neoliberalism. In the analysis, we explain how Womad users channel their desire for economic empowerment into a critique of South Korean patriarchy and a concomitant desire to escape South Korea. Hating Men, Empowering Women: Where Did Womad Come From? Womad’s relationship with the status quo is, to say the least, complicated. This is because the Womad collective is explicit about their belief that a social hierarchy is not only necessary but also natural. Their beef is not with the notion of hierarchy (supported by capitalism), but with how the system has been rigged against women. Womad can be read as co-opting the language of the alt-right in its belief that “we” the “oppressed” must return to a Hobbesian natural state, and that “we” have been denuded of our natural right to power because of political correctness (Dignam & Rohlinger, 2019). Womad’s adaptation of alt-right discourse is also apparent in the community’s disdain for intersectional feminism (more on this below). South Korean media have also noted the characteristics Womad share with other South Korean right-wing groups: xenophobia, homophobia, and the hatred of President Moon, who is often considered a liberal- progressive. Womad users were part of an admittedly awkward coalition of right-wing groups (of mostly men) who protested

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